Telecommunications networks may provide a number of services, such as plain old telephone service (“POTS”), digital subscriber line (“DSL”), and cable. A telecommunications network may be divided into a plurality of geographic areas known as turfs. Maintenance of the telecommunications network generally involves a proper reallocation of technicians across the turfs such that work orders can be timely filled. For example, when one turf experiences a high volume of work orders, it may be desirable to reallocate available technicians from another, preferably nearby, turf with a low volume of work orders to help with the high volume. The reallocation of technicians may be based on a number of factors, such as the location, skills, schedule, and availability of the technicians, as well as the priority of the work orders and the amount of time to complete the work orders.
Different types of work orders generally provide different commitment dates. A commitment date refers to a given amount of time in which a work order is to be completed. In particular, certain types of work orders may be assigned a higher priority than other types of work orders. For example, maintenance orders, such as an order to restore lost service for an existing customer, may be considered a higher priority than service orders, such as an order for installation of new service for a new customer. When scheduling work orders and assigning a given number of technicians to those work orders, scheduling personnel may utilize the commitment dates to determine the most optimal schedule such that all the pending work orders are timely dispatched.
A load balance supervisor (“LBS”) may be assigned to coordinate the reallocation of technicians within a plurality of turfs. Information related to the commitment dates may be useful to the LBS and other load balancing personnel. The commitment dates are conventionally provided as raw data, and the LBS is typically responsible for manually associating the raw data with the plurality of turfs. The process of manually associating the raw data with the plurality of turfs may be time-consuming and labor intensive. Further, if the LBS is unfamiliar with the plurality of turfs (e.g., the LBS is assigned to a recent disaster area), the LBS may be unable to properly associate the raw data with the plurality of turfs.